Evidence for common alterations in cerebral glucose metabolism in major affective disorders and schizophrenia

Regional glucose metabolic rates were measured in affectively disordered patients during the performance of auditory discrimination. Those regions previously observed as abnormal in schizophrenia were examined to see if similar alterations might be associated with affective disorder. The abnormalities observed in the mid-prefrontal cortex, an area that appears to be an important biologic determinant of the sustained attention required of subjects in this task, are similar to those previously observed in schizophrenia. Moreover, the abnormalities do not appear to relate directly to symptomatology or the subject's performance. The authors discuss the possibility that this abnormality may reflect dysfunction in the integrating component of the attention network critical for the maintenance of goal-directed behavior and thus represent a psychosis vulnerability factor in some patients.